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By H. Alan Scott
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If you’ve seen any of Jordan Klepper’s work on The Daily Show, one question begs to be asked: Why do supporters of President Donald Trump keep talking to him at MAGA rallies and Trump events? By now, you would think they would have seen his past work. But Klepper, who spoke with Newsweek’s Parting Shot podcast in advance of his latest half hour special, The Daily Show Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Red Flags, says you’d be surprised by the appeal of a camera.
"Well, I think there's two things going on," Klepper tells Newsweek. "One, people have very different algorithms and bubbles. And so I think that there is a world that sees videos and things that I'm a part of a lot in their feeds, and there's another world who has no idea what's going on, they also might think the earth is flat. Like there are algorithms that put you in very specific lanes. So that's happening across this great country of ours. Also, I think the desire to be on camera and receive attention, oftentimes outweighs any fear or trepidation about taking that step in front of that camera."
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Despite the comedy that often comes from many of his specials, underneath it all is a truth about Trump supporters that actually says a lot about how Trump operates.
"We are narrative-making machines that work so hard to cultivate this righteous story that we can set ourselves in the middle of," Klepper said. "And Donald Trump, he vomits out so many boogeymans, like he's morally all over the mat and had no idea what MAGA stands for. But this transphobia one is a great example of like, it's cruelty and hate that then loosely they attach to religion, and then the save the children idea is something that was sort of back there that is detritus from the Epstein conversation."
In the special, Klepper hits the campaign trail ahead of the midterm election to find out if Trump can keep his coalition together and maintain control of Congress, or does all these red flags (sagging poll numbers, the unpopularity of the war with Iran) spell trouble for the MAGA movement.
"I noticed in this special, like I've seen within progressive folks this last election, that desire to unplug that it's been overwhelming and they taking a step back," Klepper said. "And it was curious even seeing people in the MAGA movement who have also unplugged.”
The Daily Show Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Red Flags will air on The Daily Show Monday, Oct. 26. Afterwards it will be available on The Daily Show's YouTube channel and Paramount+.
Below is a condensed and lightly edited for clarity version of the conversation. For the full discussion, listen or watch the Parting Shot podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
What do you think it is about this particular type of person that goes to a political event? I think it's a different breed of person that gets involved with a campaign in a particular way.
Yes, well, I think as far as the MAGA events that I have attended and was attending recently for this special, there's been an evolution of those. And evolution is not a term I tend to use within the MAGA-sphere. But I will say, originally political events were for the people to celebrate a candidate, but there's also space at those events to discover a candidate. If you had a curiosity about what somebody had to say, that was a place that perhaps the more middle ground voter could go to and engage. Now, the way politics is, and specifically the MAGA movement, the act of going to a Trump rally is an act of fidelity. It is a performance unto itself. And so a lot of the people that I talk to, they're not there because there's one issue that Trump hasn't articulated for them. In many cases, they are there to show that they are there and they dress the part, they are part of the show, they are a part of parade that has come through town and therefore, you'll notice a lot of people we talk to, they're dressed to impress. I joke that if you wear a cape and a star-spangled entire outfit, there's a good chance you want to be heard on camera. And that is part of what a Trump show is nowadays.
The origins of this allegiance and dressing the part for the event I think is pretty bipartisan. It reminds me of the tribes that would come out and dress the part at events for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
Well, I think you put a fine point on there's a cultish element to this. But the tribalism is bipartisan. And it's perhaps one of the things that I relate most to this movement, this desire and this need to be a part of something to show up at a event where there's a lot of other people like in the more benign version of it is, you know, fandom for sports teams and what have you. And yeah, like that feeling I think sometimes progressive folks miss out on what is so enjoyable about putting on a MAGA hat and walking into a space where 10,000 other people are wearing that hat. And as a Michigan football fan who grew up going to games as a kid and goes back now, there's something beautiful about putting on a uniform, then walk into a place where 100,000 people are doing the exact same thing. And you are a part of something. And with that comes a sense of community. It also comes like a freeing of letting go of your individuality and letting it be part of a group identity. What you are seeing now, this has gone on so long, is you are seen the cult of personality which was there from the beginning, some of these things where people are tired of the costume party. I think that is fraying in its own way. But if you go to an event now, usually the people, those first few thousand people who are there, they're going there to show the part.
When you're at these events, how do you navigate the conversations you have, especially when they go in an uncomfortable direction?
Well, this last week I went to Texas and it was really interesting because I will say what I like about these rallies is I hear on the news what voters are truly interested in. But you're always surprised by how interested they are in those topics when you actually get there and talk to people who are at these events. And Texas is a very specific race because of Ken Paxton, who has all these corruption allegations. Elon Musk is pouring $158 million in to run ads and make people really hyper-focused on his (Democratic candidate James Talarico) Christianity. And when I landed in Texas, what I was very surprised by is, are they gonna talk about gas prices? Are they talking about the war? What are the big issues that are affecting them? And it went to a dark place pretty quick. Transphobia was all over the map. This non-binary James Tallarico ad that has been all over the place there, that's like the thing that stuck with so many voters. And comedically, we walked out there knowing there was probably some humor to be had in that. For us, comedically they're making such hay out of this non-binary God thing, but I don't think they've really thought it through. We found comedy in like, if you're gonna make this your big issue that God's non-binary, then like articulate that for me. What is God to you? And of course, hilarity ensues when you can't put them into a category and then you're looking for a term in which to put God into and you come back to an argument that you vilified a candidate for for three months.
In the early days of The Daily Show, the talking point became young people are getting their news from a comedy show. Now news is so fragmented. What do you think what you do at The Daily Show represents or how people receive news?
Well, you know, I started out as a fan of The Daily Show before I got to work on The Daily Show. And so I was one of those people who was, I wouldn't say was getting my news, but I was excited about the news because I would watch The Daily Show. And we will get fans who will echo that sentiment of like, I get the news here and I think, as somebody who's employed by The Daily Show, loves The Daily Show, works with The Daily Show, I always pump those breaks. So I'm flattered that you tune in, but remember that we are an editorial show. We are commenting on the news, but what I take from that is I think there is bias in all news, as we know. And some news, incredible bias, and a lot of news is not even news, it's just AI-generated stuff. And so I do think what was always interesting about tuning into Jon Stewart is I knew that he had a bias towards comedy, and I wasn't taking it as this is the news, but I understood where he was coming from. And then you'd flip on over to another news source that was pretending to be this unbiased thing, and you'd see right through that bias. So I think that there is a sincerity and an earnestness in the delivery method of The Daily Show, and our fan base gets it, you get our bias. Our bias is towards finding humor, calling out bulls**t and finding a joke, and we will probably try to lean towards a metaphor, towards genitalia wherever we can. [Laughs]
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